Penn Cricket Club has been in the news
in 2014 after receiving a £50,000 grant from the National
Lottery Fund to improve the facilities on the Mount Road
ground. A new pavilion will be built with a bar and
conferencing facilities, a multi-use room and kitchens.
The club was founded in 1908 by members
of St. Bart’s Church, and at that time played on Penn
Common. The first club president was the Rev. O. A. Holden,
and the team captain was ‘Billy’ Boon.
There were complications, because Penn
Common was also a golf course, then run by the newly formed
Penn Golf Club (previously the home of the South
Staffordshire Golf Club which moved to Tettenhall in 1908)
and so the cricket club moved to a piece of land on the
corner of Muchall Road and Penn Road. The opening of the
ground was celebrated by a game between Penn Cricket Club
and Wolverhampton Cricket Club. The team captains were H. D.
Stratton for Penn, and Raymond C. Page for Wolverhampton.
Cricket ceased during the First World
War, and the club temporarily closed. It was reformed in
1919 and continued to use the ground for about two years,
when the land was sold to build houses.
Luckily the club was allowed to use a
piece of land alongside Pinfold Lane that belonged to George
Mason, who owned around 500 grocery shops and lived at the
Woodlands, Penn Road. The club remained on the site until
1934 when Mr. Mason died. After his death on 22nd August,
the land was sold to build the houses that are in Regent
Road and Canterbury Road.
Once again the club was homeless, but
help was at hand in the form of Mr. Alan Twentyman, who in
1935 kindly donated a piece of land in Mount Road, where the
club still resides today.
The Twentyman family continued to be
involved with the club. For many years the club president
had been the Rev. Edgar Hartill. On his retirement in 1948
the late Mrs. E. B. Twentyman of Muchall Hall took over.
Today the club continues to be
successful, providing facilities for any able person from
around the age of seven upwards. There are games in the
summer, and winter nets and coaching. |